Brendan Griffin
Question:596 Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Minister for Social Protection her views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding community employment schemes. [18696/12]
View answerWednesday, 18 April 2012
Questions (585)
Written answers
In relation to the sentiments outlined in the correspondence from Mr. Myles O'Brien I would like to acknowledge that Community Employment (CE) schemes provide a very important and valued contribution to social employment, training and progression for unemployed people. Furthermore, many Community Employment schemes provide vital community services right across the country.
CE schemes play an important role in our communities, in particular by providing services which have an intrinsic social value like helping the disabled to live independently or delivering meals on wheels to our older citizens. This point sometimes gets lost in a purely economic analysis of CE schemes, which views them as not delivering sufficient progression into the labour market.
The Department will ensure that the contribution of such schemes is recognised in any future decisions on the future operation, funding and role of community employment.
A financial review of Community Employment (CE) Schemes is underway. This review of CE Schemes has proved to be a valuable exercise for both the schemes themselves and for my Department.
Given the volume and breath of the data being returned, the financial review of CE schemes will take longer than originally envisaged to complete. This will allow more time for schemes to engage with local officials in the finalisation of their respective budgets and for my Department to bring forward improvements to the overall operation of Community Employment which will improve the budgetary situation for schemes. No final allocations of materials and training grants have been made pending completion of the review.
However due to the current economic circumstances, this Department has had to find significant savings in the Budget for 2012. The reduction only applies to the grant for materials and training and represents a reduction of 7.5% of the overall expenditure on Community Employment in 2011. The allowance grants for Supervisors are unchanged, as are the working hours for staff employed under Community Employment. There will be no decrease in the number of Community Employment places allocated in 2012.
The existing commitment in relation to the financial support of schemes will continue to apply.
The outcome of these reviews will inform the overall approach to be taken by the Department of Social Protection in relation to how to secure the best outcomes for the schemes and for their participants taking account both of the large amount of money we spend on CE schemes and the valuable contribution that many of them make to their communities.
The Government has been clear that in the event that the changes in the training and material grant announced in the Budget create financial difficulties for schemes, the Department of Social Protection will continue to provide funding for those schemes and funding has been made available in this context.
Where a scheme demonstrates a clear need, up to €1,000 may be available to that scheme in respect of the training and materials grant for this year.
There are currently 1,143 CE schemes in operation nationally with 23,300 participants. The overall estimated budget stands at €315,194 million for 2012.
The review will also seek to establish if income is generated by scheme activity and the potential for utilisation of these funds to cover project costs.
Community Employment participants can continue to avail of education and training programmes that are available to them free of charge from existing State funded providers. This facility will also form part of the arrangements that will be developed as part of the establishment of SOLAS.